Swedish literature

Swedish literature, the body of writings produced in the Swedish language within Sweden’s modern-day geographic and political boundaries.

The literatures of Sweden and Finland are closely linked. From the mid-12th century until 1809, Finland was ruled by Sweden, and Swedish remained the dominant language of the upper classes in Finland until the end of the 19th century. Writings produced in Finland in the Swedish language (Finland-Swedish literature) are discussed under Finnish literature, as are the works of Finnish exiles who lived in Sweden.

Swedish literature proper began in the late Middle Ages when, after a long period of linguistic change, Old Swedish emerged as a separate language. The foundations of a native literature were established in the 13th century. The oldest extant manuscript in Old Swedish is the Västgötalagan (“Law of West Gotland”), part of a legal code compiled in the 1220s. These legal documents often employ concrete images, alliteration, and a solemn prose rhythm suited to their proclamatory nature.

The poetry of chivalry was first represented in Eufemiavisorna (“The Songs of Euphemia”), written in doggerel between 1303 and 1312, which includes a translation of French poet Chrétien de Troyes’sromanceYvain. Anonymous ballads probably dating from the 14th and 15th centuries also reflect a new interest in the romance genre. These ballads, though mostly derived from foreign sources and combining the imported ideals of courtly love with native pagan themes and historical events, form the most accessible genre of what can be called Swedish medieval literature.

The 16th century

Two dates mark the beginning of modern Swedish history: 1523—the breach with Denmark and Gustav I Vasa’s accession as king of Sweden—and 1527—the breach with Rome and the establishment of a national Lutheran Church. The political revolution that eventually brought Sweden to the position of a European power had no considerable effect on literature until a century later, but the Reformation wholly dominated Swedish letters in the 1500s.

The most important literary event of this period was the translation of the Bible in 1541, which inaugurated modern Swedish and provided an inexhaustible source for poets of subsequent times. Closely involved in the Bible translation were the apostles of the Swedish Reformation, Olaus Petri and his brother Laurentius Petri. Olaus Petri’s vigorous approach was revealed in his published sermons and in a Swedish chronicle, the first historical Swedish work based on critical research. Olaus Petri may also have written the biblical Tobie comedia (published 1550), the first complete extant Swedish play.

As a consequence of the Reformation, two of Sweden’s most distinguished scholars of the period, Johannes Magnus and his brother Olaus Magnus, were driven into exile. In his history of all the kings of the Goths and Swedes, Johannes Magnus provided Sweden with a number of valiant kings unknown to critical historians. Olaus Magnus wrote the first geographical and ethnographical account of Scandinavia, Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (1555; “History of the Northern Peoples”; Eng. trans. Description of the Northern Peoples: Rome 1555).

The 17th century

In the first half of the 17th century, Swedish literature remained limited in scope and quantity. A unique contribution, however, was made by Lars Wivallius, whose lyrics revealed a feeling for nature new to Swedish poetry. With its intervention in the Thirty Years’ War, Sweden established itself as a European power; national pride and culture soon began to develop, as revealed in literature of this epoch. The period’s outstanding work was the allegorical epicHercules (published 1658) by Georg Stiernhielm, which reflected many of the social and political problems of the time. Another poem often attributed to Stiernhielm is Bröllopsbesvärs ihugkommelse (first published 1818; “Recollections of Wedding Troubles”), a masterpiece of humour and realism describing the drunken debauchery of a wedding feast and the joys and sorrows of matrimony. Stiernhielm’s followers included the two brothers Columbus, one of whom, Samuel, wrote Odae sueticae (1674; “Swedish Odes”) as well as a collection of anecdotes that illumine Stiernhielm’s character. A rival to Stiernhielm was the unidentified Skogekär Bärgbo (a pseudonym), whose Wenerid (1680) was the first sonnet cycle in Swedish.

Stiernhielm aimed at an integration of Sweden’s cultural heritage with the accepted ideals of Continental Classicism. His Hercules is full of old Swedish words that he was eager to revive. Samuel Columbus also demanded a more vigorous, flexible language, as did Skogekär Bärgbo in Thet swenska språkets klagemål (1658; “The Lament of the Swedish Language”). National pride and religious feeling are combined in the works of the bishops Haquin Spegel and Jesper Swedberg, the latter the father of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Spegel contributed to Swedberg’s new hymnbook of 1695, which became the poetry book of the Swedish people and was of lasting influence. Even the lyric poet Lucidor (pseudonym of Lars Johansson) was represented in it. His poetry was an intense expression of the contrasting moods of the period: in his love songs and, above all, in his drinking songs, he was as pagan and reckless as he was devout in his hymns and funeral poems.

Lars Johansson, portrait by an unknown artist; in Gripsholm Castle, SwedenCourtesy of the Svenska Portrattarkivet, Stockholm

At Uppsala, meanwhile, the scholar Petrus Lagerlöf attempted to impose purer Classical standards on native literature, and Olof Verelius edited and translated Icelandic sagas. It was Olof Rudbeck, however, who became interested in Verelius’s work and developed a theory that Sweden was the lost Atlantis and had been the cradle of Western civilization. He proposed this idea in Atland eller Manheim (1679–1702), which, translated into Latin as Atlantica, attained European fame.

Baroque and Classicist tendencies ran parallel in late 17th-century Swedish literature. Gunno Eurelius (Gunno Dahlstierna) wrote an elaborate epic, Kungaskald (“Hymn to the King”), for King Charles XI’s funeral in 1697. Simpler in style was Johan Runius, who expressed a Christian stoicism of the kind found among Swedes during the disastrous early decades of the 18th century. Jacob Frese was a gentler and more intimate poet; his lyrics and hymns contain some of the emotional pietism that became a feature of 18th-century thought.

The 18th century

After the death of King Charles XII (1718) and the collapse of his empire, a utilitarian attitude to life and letters gradually developed in Sweden. Olof von Dalin was the outstanding popularizer of the new ideas of the Enlightenment, which he expressed perhaps most clearly in Svea rikes historia (1747–62; “History of the Swedish Realm”), a rational and readable treatment of Swedish history commissioned by the estates of the realm that long remained a standard work. Educated at Lund, he later went to Stockholm and began to publish, anonymously, Then Swänska Argus (1732–34; “The Swedish Argus”), a weekly periodical modeled on The Spectator of the Englishmen Richard Steele and Joseph Addison. One of the first serious journalistic ventures in Sweden, it marked the beginning of a new era, in which orthodoxy gave way to skepticism and the Enlightenment, the Baroque to Classicism, and German influence to English and French. At this time the middle class also began gradually to take over the function of chief consumer of literature. In Argus Dalin ridiculed the foibles of the capital, and in Sagan om hästen (1740; “The Story of the Horse”) he showed himself a master of allegorical satire.

Dalin, detail of an oil painting by J.H. Scheffel; in Krageholm Castle, Skåne, Swed.Courtesy of the Svenska Portrattarkivet, Stockholm

Dalin also produced some pseudo-Classicist plays that, like many Swedish dramatic ventures of the early and mid-18th century, have been dismissed as academic and lifeless by critics. The one notable exception is Den Svenska sprätthöken (1737; “The Swedish Fop”), a comedy by Count Carl Gyllenborg.

With the second phase of the Enlightenment, marked by the influence of French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, are associated Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht, the epicurean Gustav Philip Creutz, and his stoic friend Gustaf Fredrik Gyllenborg. In Den sörgande turturdufwan (1743; “The Sorrowing Turtledove”), Nordenflycht laments the death of her husband in highly personal lyrics. Creutz was born in Finland but left it for Sweden; his few writings, of which the pastoral Atis och Camilla (1762) is the most important, reveal a mastery of form and versification.

Hedvig Nordenflycht, detail of an oil painting by Johan Henrik Scheffel, 1754; in the Svenska Portrattarkivet, StockholmCourtesy of the Svenska Portrattarkivet, Stockholm

Prose—particularly the novel—developed slowly. The first genuine novel, Adalrik och Giöthildas äfventyr (1742–44; “The Adventures of Adalrik and Giöthilden”), by Jacob Mörk and Anders Törngren, shows the influence of the Icelandic sagas. Only two 18th-century Swedish writers achieved a wide European reputation, and both were scientists: Carl von Linné (Carolus Linnaeus) and Emanuel Swedenborg.

The Gustavian period takes its name from King Gustav III (reigned 1771–92), a brilliant man and a patron of art and letters. He was especially interested in drama and opera, and, thanks to his patronage, a distinctively Swedish theatrical tradition developed. Gustav himself sketched out some works, the best of which was a historical opera, Gustaf Vasa, which was finished in collaboration between Johan Henrik Kellgren and the composer J.G. Naumann. Kellgren, an academic poet and arbiter of taste, ruled that Swedish literature should be modeled on Classicist French patterns. In the journal Stockholmsposten, the main organ of literary opinion in the capital, Kellgren used his polemical wit against Thomas Thorild, a truculent champion of individual genius. After beginning as a rationalist and satirist in the fashion of Voltaire, Kellgren reluctantly came to accept pre-Romantic ideas. After Kellgren’s death the controversy was carried on by Carl Gustaf af Leopold, who imposed pseudo-Classical standards on the Swedish Academy (founded 1786) and applied them in his own rhetorical odes and tragedies. Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna did his most original work while a diplomat in Vienna; his Skördarne (1796; “Harvests”) reveals pre-Romantic feeling for the beauty of nature. Bengt Lidner was the chief exponent of pre-Romanticism in poetry. His most successful work is the ode Grefvinnan Spastaras död (1783; “The Death of Countess Spastara”).

Carl Michael Bellman stands apart from the conflicting ideals of the time. A poet and musician, he combined stylized realism with humour and a uniquely delicate sense of language and rhythm. He was the greatest Swedish lyricist of the 18th century.

The dissertation Om upplysning (1793; “On Enlightenment”) by Nils von Rosenstein, the first secretary of the Swedish Academy, expresses the ideals of the Gustavian epoch. Memoirs by G.J. Adlerbeth, G.J. Ehrensvärd, and others evoke the witty but artificial atmosphere of Gustav III’s court. Gustav IV, who followed, did not encourage literature; nevertheless, Anna Maria Lenngren wrote some of her best verse satires between 1795 and 1800, many aimed at aristocratic foibles.

The 19th century

Sweden underwent great political changes during the first decade of the century, with 1809 marking a watershed: the king abdicated as a result of a coup; the country received a new, more democratic constitution; and a third of Swedish territory, including Finland, was lost in the Treaty of Fredrikshamn (Hamina). Literature participated in the reconstruction of the badly bruised national self-image. Ardentnationalism emerged as a characteristic of Swedish Romanticism.

The idealism at the core of Swedish Romanticism was laid by the Kantian teaching of Swedish philosopher Benjamin Höijer and the impact on Swedish literature of Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and the German Romantics. Student societies and their periodicals, such as Polyfem (1809–12) and Phosphorus (1810–13), led the attack on the traditional school. Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom, the most gifted of the Forforister, or Phosphorists, wrote the poem “Prolog” (1810) for Phosphorus, revealing both his talent and his commitment to Romanticism.

Meanwhile, another society, Götiska Förbundet (Gothic Society), advocated, from its start in 1811, that study of the “Gothic” past could morally improve society. One of its members, Esaias Tegnér, wrote a popular verse epic, Frithiofs saga (1825), based on an Old Norse theme. Tegnér valued old Northern mythology for the patterns he discerned in it—patterns he also found in Greek mythology and Romanticmetaphysics, in which religion, philosophy, and poetry appeared to be one and the same. Nevertheless, Tegnér’s ideals of clarity of thought and formal perfection led him sometimes to side with traditionalists in their struggle against obscurities and formal innovations.

Tegnér, oil painting by Johan Gustaf Sandberg, 1836; in the University of Uppsala, SwedenCourtesy of the Konsthistoriska Institutionen, Uppsala Universitet, Sweden

Several leading Romantics were learned men whose poetry strove to embody a philosophical system or an interpretation of history. The most ambitious attempt of this kind was Atterbom’s Lycksalighetens ö (1824–27; “The Isle of Bliss”), an allegory dealing with adventures of a legendary king, Astolf, and a history of poetry as an illustration of human alienation from the divine. The greatest poet was perhaps Erik Johan Stagnelius, who held aloof from schools and coteries. The recurrent theme in his Liljor i Saron (1821; “Lilies of Sharon”) is the lament of the human soul, imprisoned in a world of darkness and sin.

In prose the most complex personality among the later Romantics was a novelist, Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, who combined an extravagant imagination with realism. A master of prose style, he was at his best in the long short story, in which he foreshadowed playwright and novelist August Strindberg’s method of raising problems for debate. The novel was established by Fredrika Bremer, author of Grannarna (1837; The Neighbours), whose “sketches from ordinary life” appeared from 1828. Sophie von Knorring wrote chiefly about aristocratic families, and Emilie Flygare-Carlén produced stories dealing with west-coast life, including Rosen på Tistelön (1842; The Rose of Tistelön).

Fredrika Bremer, detail of an oil painting by J.O. Sodermark, 1843; in the Svenska Portrattarkivet, StockholmCourtesy of the Svenska Portrattarkivet, Stockholm

Realism made only slow headway in spite of the example of Johan Ludvig Runeberg, a Finnish poet writing in Swedish. Literature of the 1840s and 1850s was mainly an aftereffect of Romanticism. A movement known as Pan-Scandinavianism, which called for varying forms of political and cultural Scandinavian unity, produced a good deal of verse: Carl Vilhelm August Strandberg (pseudonym Talis Qualis), the fieriest poet of this type, later made excellent translations from British Romantic poet Lord Byron. Popular reading was provided by August Blanche in Bilder ur verkligheten (1863–65; “Pictures of Real Life”), short stories depicting Stockholm life with humour and vivacity, while Frans Hedberg wrote historical plays.

Poetic Realism became an official program of the “pseudonym poets” of the 1860s, including Carl David of Wirsén, Edvard Bäckström, Pontus Wikner, and Carl Snoilsky. Only Snoilsky had the temperament and poetic gift needed to carry out the program. Wirsén, on the other hand, as secretary of the Swedish Academy, launched formidable opposition against innovators. Viktor Rydberg fell between idealism and naturalism. His important early work consisted of an ideological novel, Den siste athenaren (1859; The Last Athenian), and a treatise, Bibelns lära om Kristus (1862; “The Teaching of the Bible About Christ”), which prepared the way for scientific rationalism. Toward the end of his life he published a poem, “Den nya Grottesången” (1891; “The New Song of Grotte”), in which he castigated the evils of materialism and capitalism.

Snoilsky, oil painting by Anna Nordgren, 1885; in a private collectionCourtesy of the Svenska Portrattarkivet, Stockholm

The modern breakthrough in Swedish literature

Four influences combined to free Swedish literature from petrifying conventions: the English writings of naturalist Charles Darwin, sociologist Herbert Spencer, and philosopher John Stuart Mill; the French naturalism of novelist Émile Zola; the drama of the Norwegians Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson; and the criticism of the Dane Georg Brandes. The modern literature that grew from these influences was first and best represented in the work of August Strindberg, Sweden’s greatest writer. Modern drama dates from his play Mäster Olof (1872), and the modern novel from Röda rummet (1879; The Red Room). Strindberg overshadowed all the writers of the 1880s, including Gustaf af Geijerstam, author of Erik Grane (1885), Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler, and Victoria Benedictsson; the latter two wrote about the adverse position of women in society. Benedictsson’s stories, as in Från Skåne (1884; “From Skåne”), revealed the regional character of the new prose literature. Regional poetry was written by Albert Bååth and sometimes by Ola Hansson, both of Skåne, although Hansson was also known for his more cosmopolitan literature.

In 1888 Verner von Heidenstam began the reaction against utilitarianism and naturalism with a volume of verse, Vallfart och vandringsår (“Pilgrimage and Wander Years”). His later poetry and historical tales won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1916. Oscar Ivar Levertin, stimulated by Heidenstam’s example, wrote poetry full of colour and lore of the past and as a critic was influential in molding contemporary taste. Gustaf Fröding was also influenced by Heidenstam, his verse ranging from the melancholy to the humorous. Regionalism entered Neoromantic poetry with Fröding, who was from Värmland; the work of Erik Axel Karlfeldt evoked the province of Dalarna. Karlfeldt’s mature poetry won him the Nobel Prize in 1931.

Meanwhile, Selma Lagerlöf, the first Swede and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature (1909), had developed the prose tale; her long series of novels and short stories, beginning with Gösta Berlings saga (1891), reached an international public through translation. Per Hallström was a more skillful writer of short stories than of novels. Albert Engström, a great humorist both as a writer and as an artist, showed himself a Romantic in his love for the skerries (rocky isles) off Sweden’s coast.

The 20th century

The early years of the 20th century were a period of decadence and pessimism in Swedish literature. Representative of this mood were Hjalmar Söderberg and Bo Bergman. Söderberg’s forte was the short story, in which psychological subtlety and irony were happily combined and in which, as in his novels Martin Bircks ungdom (1901; “Martin Birck’s Youth”) and Doktor Glas (1905; Doctor Glas), he appeared as a master of Swedish prose. Bergman also produced memorable short stories, but his real medium was the lyric; he developed his talent in a series of collections from Marionetterna (1903; “The Marionettes”) to Riket (1944; “The Kingdom”).

The modern novel

The development of the novel was associated with Gustaf Hellström, Sigfrid Siwertz, Ludvig Nordström, and Elin Wägner. Hellström’s work as a journalist in Europe, the United States, and England greatly influenced him. Irony and careful detail emerged in his best-known novel, Snörmakare Lekholm får en idé (1927; Lacemaker Lekholm Has an Idea). Siwertz was a more elegant stylist, and a decisive influence upon him was the philosophy of Henri Bergson, as reflected in En flanör (1914; “An Idler”); but his weightiest work was a family saga, Selambs (1920; Downstream), a novel of Stockholm during World War I. Nordström, overflowing with vitality and keen but grotesque humour, accomplished some of his best work in Landsorts-bohème (1911; “Small-Town Bohemia”) and in his short stories—for example, Fiskare (1907; “Fishermen”). Wägner was an ardent pacifist and feminist; her most powerful work was a peasant novel, Åsa-Hanna (1918). The outstanding Swedish novelist of the 1920s was Hjalmar Bergman; with vivid imagination and restless energy, Bergman wrote a long series of stories, many set in “Wadköping” (his native Örebro) and others in Italy. In Loewenhistorier (1913) he depicted an irrational, impulsive, unsuccessful hero; in Farmor och vår Herre (1921; Thy Rod and Thy Staff) he portrayed one of the dominating female personalities that fascinated him. The satiric novel Markurells i Wadköping (1919; God’s Orchid) and the play Swedenhielms (performed 1925), one of the few Swedish comedies, were his most widely known works.

Ludvig Anselm Nordström, detail of an oil portrait by Leander Engström, 1919; in a private collection, Stockholm.Courtesy of the Svenska Portrattarkivet, Stockholm

Meanwhile, the “proletarian” novel had been developed by writers concerned with the miseries of the working class, particularly Martin Koch and Ivar Lo-Johansson. There was particularly harsh criticism of working-class conditions in stories by Jan Fridegård. Vilhelm Moberg wrote novels of peasant life but achieved his greatest success with a four-volume prose epic about a group of Swedes who immigrate to North America—Utvandrarna (1949–59; The Emigrants), Invandrarna (1952; Unto a Good Land), Nybyggarna (1956; The Settlers), and Sista brevet till Sverige (1959; “The Last Letter Home”; the last two vol. also published in part in English translation as The Last Letter Home). The development of the Swedish autobiographical novel was helped by Eyvind Johnson, with the series Romanen om Olof (1934–37); Harry Martinson, with Nässlorna blomma (1935; Flowering Nettle) and Vägen ut (1936; “The Way Out”); and Agnes von Krusenstjerna. In her novel cycles—the Tony trilogy (1922–26) and the Fröknarna von Pahlen series (1930–35)—Krusenstjerna described her own aristocratic environment. Martinson was one of a group of five primitivist writers formed about 1930. He later developed into one of the finest lyricists of the century. Sensuous imagery and a feeling for nature characterize his work. He attempted to revive the verse epic in his Aniara (1956), a symbolic story of a spaceship’s doomed voyage. Martinson shared the Nobel Prize for Literature with Johnson in 1974.

The Swedish writer who was best known internationally during the 20th century was Pär Lagerkvist. In his youth a bold innovator, he later developed a prose style of distinct clarity, as in the allegorical novel Dvärgen (1944; The Dwarf). His collections of poems—such as Ångest (1916; “Anguish”)—and early plays—for instance, Himlens hemlighet (1919; “The Secret of Heaven”)—were expressionistic in style. The dominant theme throughout Lagerkvist’s work is a search for vital, often outspokenly religious values. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1951.

Several of the best Swedish writers were connected with the development of lyric poetry. One of the most notable, Vilhelm Ekelund, was in his youth the chief exponent of Symbolism in Sweden and later, as an author of aphorisms, exerted much influence on the development of literary modernism. Among the most popular poets were Dan Andersson, Birger Sjöberg, and Hjalmar Gullberg. In Gullberg’s poetry, religious commitment and classical learning are balanced by irony and wit. A more esoteric style in modernism was introduced by Bertil Malmberg and developed by the group of poets referred to as the generation of the 1940s, which included Erik Lindegren and Karl Vennberg. Stylistically influenced by American-English poet T.S. Eliot, they often expressed an anguish and disbelief that approached French existentialism. Lindegren’s Mannen utan väg (1942; The Man Without a Way) was typical of this generation’s search for meaning in life. The most distinguished novelist of the 1940s was Lars Ahlin, who was concerned with humankind’s search for grace through love and humiliation in works such as Min död är min (1945; “My Death Is Mine”).

The greatest lyric poet of the century was Gunnar Ekelöf. His first collection of poems, Sent på jorden (1932; Late Arrival on Earth), was heralded as the first specimen of Surrealism in Swedish literature. Ekelöf’s later development passed through successive phases of Romanticism and antipoetic skepticism that resulted in a trilogy (1965–67) blending autobiography with Eastern mysticism.

Political writing

In reaction to the literature of the 1940s and 1950s, which was much concerned with artistic form and individual approaches to life, the 1960s was a period of political and social commitment in poetry and fiction alike. Recurrent topics were the war in Vietnam and the Swedish welfare state, often bitterly attacked. Göran Palm, whose poems in conversational language describe everyday reality, was among the first to transgress the poetic conventions of the 1950s, while Göran Sonnevi’s poem “Om kriget i Vietnam” (1965; “On the War in Vietnam”) served as a forceful call to action for the young generation. While remaining true to his quest for social justice, Sonnevi later moved toward intellectual mysticism and expanded his thematics to love and existential issues. Independent lyric poetry continued to be produced by writers such as Östen Sjöstrand and Tomas Tranströmer, the latter a master of the metaphor and one of the foremost Swedish poets of the late 20th century. Birgitta Trotzig forcefully expressed in her novels a tortured experience of life, coloured by Roman Catholicism.

The movement toward—and subsequently away from—politically committed literature is exemplified by the work of Sara Lidman. During the 1950s she was one of Sweden’s most creative novelists, but she then ceased producing fiction in order to take part in the political debate of the time. After the late 1970s, however, Lidman returned to creative literature with a series of novels centred on life in an isolated community in northern Sweden. Sven Lindqvist went through a similar process; after a period of committed writing, he returned in En älskares dagbok (1981; “A Lover’s Diary”) to a more or less autobiographical novel of his own youth. Lars Gyllensten, a skeptical intellectual and experimenter, voiced through his novels distrust in all ideologies. In a search for a more ethical way of life, he often used historical figures—such as Socrates in Sokrates död (1960; “The Death of Socrates”)—as well as legendary ones—such as Don Juan in I skuggan av Don Juan (1975; “In the Shadow of Don Juan”)—to probe different attitudes toward life, only to discard them all; what remains in his works is the importance of openness. Political writing persisted in Sweden through the end of the 20th century, but it became more imaginative and less tied to immediate events. P.C. Jersild, for example, painted a chilling picture of civilization after a devastating nuclear war in Efter floden (1982; After the Flood); he had earlier demonstrated his talent in science fiction through allegories set in a state veterinary institution and in a hospital. In his multilayered, often metafictional novels, Lars Gustafsson railed against Sweden’s bureaucratic welfare society, which, he complained, stifled the unique in the name of egalitarianism. He is best known for his partially autobiographical Sprickorna i muren (1971–78; “The Cracks in the Wall”), called by some his Divine Comedy for its richness and broad scope. In it the protagonist progresses from his childhood hell to the terminal cancer patient’s private paradise of pain relief.

Sara Lidman.Lennart Nilsson

True to the 1960s’ distrust of fiction, authors such as Per Olof Sundman and P.O. Enquist turned to pseudodocumentary reporting that left the reader to draw conclusions and make judgments. Sundman, in prose reminiscent of the Icelandic sagas, and Enquist, in a politically conscious manner (as in Legionärerna [1968; The Legionnaires]), demonstrated the impossibility of objective narration. The step—which Enquist himself took in his later works—from noncommittal documentary prose to the historical novel, the dominant prose genre of the 1980s and ’90s, was a short one. Documents, while still the basis for fictional stories, no longer constituted the story itself. Also, writers used such narrative techniques as multiple narrators and intentional interruptions of narrative flow to retain the possibility of a range of interpretations. One such writer was Sven Delblanc, a philosophical thinker and brilliant prose stylist. In a series of novels charting the history of his childhood region, Delblanc provided a fascinating, albeit unidealized, portrait of rural Swedish society prior to World War II. His later Samuel tetralogy, which might be considered a psychohistory, traced his family’s harsh fates in Sweden and Canada in the hope of detecting meaning in a seemingly meaningless struggle for survival. Delblanc also has made use of large-scale allegory, and there is sometimes an almost mystical intensity apparent in his work.

The Swedish countryside of the past has been the setting for Torgny Lindgren’s novels, such as Ormens väg på hälleberget (1982; Way of a Serpent). He, however, was primarily interested in questions of power, oppression, and the nature of evil. Likewise, many of Göran Tunström’s novels are firmly anchored in his home region of Värmland. Originally a lyric poet, Tunström wrote prose rich in fantasy and humour and with a close affinity to music, as in Juloratoriet (1983; The Christmas Oratorio). His novels marked a return to the joy of storytelling.

Feminism, another manifestation of the politically and socially aware 1960s, brought forth a number of women writers who focused on the significance of the lives of seemingly insignificant women. Kerstin Ekman, initially a writer of detective novels, came to prominence with her meticulously documented Katrineholm series, which chronicled the lives of women in small-town Sweden. Another author who shed light on the underprivileged and socially defenseless, this time in the nation’s capital, was Heidi von Born. She approached her characters with empathy and psychological acumen. Agneta Pleijel, also an accomplished poet, found many of her subjects in history. The primary concerns in her novels are ethics, love, the role of art, and individual responsibility (as in Lord Nevermore [2000]). Other Swedish women authors at the turn of the 21st century were Sigrid Combüchen and Carina Burman, both writing historical novels, and the poets Eva Runefelt and Katarina Frostensson.

Lars Norén, regarded by many as the greatest Swedish playwright since Strindberg, has dealt with the love-hate relationships of modern dysfunctional families in emotionally powerful and sombre plays spiced with absurd humour, such as Natten är dagens mor (1982; “Night Is Mother to the Day”). Norén’s characters, like those of Strindberg, seem hopelessly locked into their closed family hell. In later works Norén left the home behind to explore the world of the “unseen”—prisoners, drug addicts, and those housed in institutions. He has, to the dismay of many, brought such people onstage to perform in his dramas, thus obliterating all borders between reality and fiction. Other successful dramatists include Enquist and Pleijel.